LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

\ ^ ^ . 



THE 



PASTOR AND THE LEAGUE 



BY 



E. H. RAWLINGS, 

Of the Virginia Conference, 



..WAR 94 1 8( 



Nashville, Tenn.: 
Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 
Barbee & Smith, Agents 
1806. 



0 



THE LIBRARY 

OF CONGRESS 

SK INGTON 

DEDICATION. 

TO THE THOUSANDS OF YOUNG PEOPLE 
IN ALL OUR METHODISMS, 
LOYAL LEAGUERS THAT ARE AND ARE TO BE, 
THIS LITTLE LABOR OF LOVE 
IS AFFECTIONATELY AND PRAYERFULLY 
INSCRIBED. 



Copyrighted, 1S96. 



PREFACE. 

The author's onlj apology for this little book is its 
need. The Methodist Church, as it seems to him, 
needs the Epworth League as, at this point in her his- 
tory, she needs nothing else — and she can have it. 
Each individual church can have the League. Wheth- 
er each church vjill have it or not depends, more than 
upon any other, it may be more than upon all others 
combined, upon the pastor. Some pastors — many, 
the great majority, all but a small minority — have thus 
far failed to recognize these important facts; or, see- 
ing the first, have quite overlooked the second. (I 
trust that my not altogether limited observation mis- 
leads me in so strong a statement as the above.) A 
few though steadily increasing number of pastors have 
seen the situation as it is. The author lays no claim 
whatsoever to greater zeal or superior discernment, 
but now, as then, by the same Spirit every member of 
the body has his own special gift, and through condi- 
tions which he believes to be entirely providential he 
has come, in the gradual evolutions of his experience 
as a pastor, to the views herein held. In his clear 
vision of the Church's opportunity and the pastor's re- 
sponsible relationship to it he finds his call, as from 

(3) 



4 The League and the Pastor. 



above, to offer this earnest, if humble, plea to his less 
enthusiastic — though, he believes, not less devoted — 
brethren in the ministry, a plea in behalf of their own 
increased efficiency and the Church's larger useful- 
ness. 

Some will think that, in his excess of zeal, the au- 
thor has put the case too strongly, and, distrustful of 
his own enthusiasm, he has been careful to sift again 
and again the statements that might seem immoder- 
ate. The sieve of second thought finds no reason to 
modify even these. He believes all the more confi- 
dently that he is clothed and in his right mind," and 
has spoken forth only the words of truth and sober- 
ness. 

Some will say that we have had successful young 
people's societies in the Church all along, and why 
this great hue and cry about the Epworth League, as 
if it were an idea never dreamed of before ? Maybe so ; 
a few — a very few, compared with the whole number 
of Epworth Leagues in existence now — and of these, 
the best were not at all comparable in organization 
and efficiency to a model, up to date League. A third- 
rate suburban church will do more with its young 
people to-day than the strong metropolitan church five 
years ago. 

Others, it may be loyal leaguers, will say that the 
pastor's relation to the League has been unduly mag- 
nified. To be sure, when there are local unions, con- 



Preface. 



5 



ferences, and connectional helps accessible, in a very 
vigorous church, a League might begin and go on 
successfully ^vithout much help from the pastor; but 
even then, without the pastor to encourage, guide, and 
keep it in touch with other branches of Church work, 
it could not come to the highest degree of prosperity. 
I say it might begin and go on ; I never saw one that 
actually did, and, from what 1 am constantly seeing to 
the contrary, I am convinced that it is next thing to 
impossible to make the League go at all without the 
pastor's enthusiastic, intelligent, and most persistent 
interest. 

The views maintained here are not new — novelty is 
not the important thing — they have, however, besides 
the merit of being true, the added excellence of being 
tried. The author knows that they are true, because 
he has tried and found them so. 

This long preface to a short book will save the 
bother of explanation farther on. 

E. H. Rawlings. 

Norfolk, Va., January, 1896. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Epworth League is an old idea in a new 
form. The idea is the rehgious development of the 
joung, and it is as old as the Church. But old truths 
are ever assuming new forms in the course of human 
progress; and so this great idea is embodied now in a 
complete system of work — simple in its organization, 
but effective in its methods — known as the Epworth 
League. 

The time is past to discuss whether we need and 
will have the League or not. It is here to stay, and 
has already accomplished wonderful results, and vin- 
dicated the wisdom of its adoption as a part of the or- 
ganic economy of the Methodist Church. It would 
be just as reasonable to argue against the Sunday 
school as against the Epworth League. They are 
both integral parts of our ecclesiastical system, and 
we can neither oppose nor neglect them without dis- 
loyalty to the Church. But, like all new things, the 
Epworth League needs to be understood and adjusted 
to the established order of the Church. Problems 
arise that it requires wisdom to solve. And many of 
these problems are connected with the relation of the 
pastor to the League and of the League to the pastor. 
Some of these problems are delicate, and the success 
of the work depends largely on their right solution. 

I take pleasure in commending to all our pastors 
and Leagues this little book as an earnest contribu- 

(7) 



8 The Pastor and the League, 



ticn to the literature of this cause. Its author is him- 
self a pastor, joung in years, yet with considerable 
experience in the ministry. He knows the place of 
the League, and writes from personal experience on 
the important topics discussed in this little volume. 
His pen is keen and bold and strong, like the thought 
it traces. His little book w^as not written because 
the author w^anted to write a book, but because there is 
need for just such an earnest discussion of the subject 
as he gives us. When you have read it, I think that 
you will join us in saying to its gifted author; **One 
good turn deserves another; give us another." 

S. A. Steel. 



The Pastor and the League. 



CHAPTER I. 

THK I.KAGUK. 

*'Our new building," and some say our 
best. A Methodist layman, an enthusiast 
whose one idea is usually the Sunday school, 
after observing very carefully the fine work 
of the League in his own Church, and attend- 
ing the great Conference in Chattanooga, for- 
got himself one day, and let slip the confes- 
sion : It is the biggest thing in Methodism." 

Now comparisons as to value, in these 
organizations of the Church, are unnecessary 
and, indeed, impossible. How would you 
properly compare the worth of the League 
with that of the Sunday school? Nothing 
could be more important than the Sunday 
school, that has done a most remarkable 
work, from the beginning and on through 
a most glorious history; and nothing could 
have taken its place. How would you com- 
pare the League with the cause of Missions ? 

(9) 



10 The Pastor and the Leao-ite. 

o 

Nothing could be more important than Mis- 
sions, since nothing, surely, lies nearer the 
heart of the Son of God than the great work 
of evangelizing the world. 

The work of the League lies in an entirely 
different field from these, and a field pecul- 
iarly its own. I was discussing the purpose 
and work of the Epworth League with an 
intelligent layman sometime since, v/hen he 
asked me to frame for him a definition, and 
particularly as to how its work is related to 
that of the Sunday school. In reply, a num- 
ber of scattering ideas at and about the spe- 
cial point were advanced, and from these his 
methodical mind gleaned and compacted the 
following, or very similar, definition : The 
Sunday school is a training school in Chris- 
tian doctrine, while the Epworth League is a 
training school in Christian experience. I 
was pleased at once v/ith the distinction, 
though I felt that it needed, perhaps, some 
qualification. I thought of it afterwards, and 
liked it better still. Was he very far from 
an accurate as well as striking definition, if 
experience be taken not in its special, but 
broader and more objective, sense of practice 
or exercise ? 



The Pastor and the League. 11 

In the Sunday school the child gets the 
truth, while in the lycague that truth takes 
fire and becomes active. The devotional 
meeting fosters the soul life, or experience 
proper, and gives opportunity for its natural 
expression in testimony, and other forms of 
participation in the public services. The 
Charity and Help work gives opportunity for 
exercise still broader, while the lyiterary De- 
partment, by bringing culture to religion, 
gives us a Christian culture, and that strong 
loyalty to duty and privilege, inseparable 
usually from culture, and so essential always 
as an element of stability and permanency in 
the life of the Church. 

The Epworth lycague, we should say, is a 
muster field for the massing and drilling of 
raw recruits, a religious gymnasium in which 
young Christians, bringing spiritual muscle 
and limb, exercise to become brave, agile, and 
strong. The Sunday school has its proper 
work in the Church, the cause of Missions has, 
certainly, its place, and the Epworth League 
its, each in its own particular sphere. 

The League, however, does possess a pe- 
culiar value ; a sort of value attaching to the 
Sunday school a hundred years ago. The 



12 



The Pastor and the League, 



Sunday school is now established ; its utility 
is well known, and its future assured. In its 
work no crisis appears, either at hand or re- 
mote. It is a dead level drive with the Sun- 
day school, or rather the incline of a gradually 
increasing success and glory all the way to 
the millennium. As for Missions — well, the 
crisis is perpetual here, and nothing could 
take precedence, whatever special quality it 
may carry. Anyway, the League is in its in- 
ception, and so its situation, by its very 
novelty, is critical. 

A need was felt in our Church, as in other 
branches of the Christian Church. Evolutions 
of Church life, in all evangelical denomina- 
tions, had been going on in this direction. 
Witness the spontaneous and almost simulta- 
neous rise of the Young People's Society of 
Christian Endeavor, the Epworth League, and 
the Baptist Young People's Union, in Con- 
gregational, Methodist, and Baptist Churches, 
respectively. 

The need seems to have been peculiarly felt 
in the Methodist Church. The class meeting 
was gone, or was no longer sufficiently influ- 
ential to be of service. lyct us lament its 
going as we might, we had to recognize that 



The Pastor and the League. 13 



this venerable and once valuable institution 
had outlived its adaptation, and so its useful- 
ness. It is certain that the class meeting had 
lost its hold upon the young people of the 
Church, and therefore could not do for them 
the noble work of training in Christian life and 
experience which it once did. Something was 
needed, badly needed, and needed at once. 
Here is any amount of latent material, unused 
knowledge ; here a most distressing hiatus 
between the Sunday school and adult member- 
ship. The breach is getting wider and wider, 
and more and more difficult to manage. At 
this point the need, long vaguely felt, had yet 
hardly distinctly voiced itself; we had scarcely 
laid our finger with certainty upon the partic- 
ular point of weakness, when the providential 
supply came in the form of the Epworth 
lycague. Can any one who knows its phenom- 
enal history doubt for one moment that it is all 
providential? Here is a niche in Church life 
which the League exactly fills, and nothing 
else can ; and we wonder now that it could 
have remained so long unfilled. 

So great the need then, so fully met, so 
suddenly, so effectually, if interest is concen- 
trated, so important is it that we concentrate 



14 The Pastor and the League, 

at once, that it is not wonderful that we hear 
on all sides : ' ^ It is our biggest and best. ' ^ Con- 
sidering, in addition to its undoubted intrinsic 
value, the peculiar importance attaching to it 
from the inevitable crisis attending a full in- 
auguration of so great a movement in the 
Church, is not the Ep worth I^eague, Missions 
always excepted, ^'the biggest thing we 
have"? 



The Pastor and the League. 



15 



CHAPTER II. 

I.KAGUK AND THK PASO'OR. 

With, that much regarding its general pur- 
pose and work, we are ready to ask novv" : Does 
the pastor sustain a peculiar relationship to 
the Ep worth I^eague? 

If he is of the right kind, he sustains a pe- 
culiar relationship to every department of the 
Church : the ofl&cial board, the ladies' and 
juvenile societies, and all the organizations 
that enter into its elaborate and complicated 
machinery. To none of these, certainly", does 
he stand more closely related than to the 
lycague. I am so far safe, and would not suf- 
fer enthusiasm to color the picture too highly. 
I have thought that the importance of the pas- 
tor to the success of the League may have 
been exaggerated in the mind of the writer. 
He is a pastor himself, and naturally regards 
the League, as other things, from the pastor's 
point of view. But in sober second thought, 
he is convinced that the pastor really has an 
importance here that can scarcely be exagger- 



16 The Pastor a?id the League, 

ated. I have observed in practical lyeague 
talks how often the pastor is referred to ; how 
often commended if faithful and efficient, and 
exhorted if remiss, and how naturally every 
department is looked at from his point of view. 

And this fact is even raore conclusive. As 
far as my observation goes, the successful 
lycague is always that in which the pastor is 
enthusiastic, while those that have operated 
without his sympathy and help, as many have 
attempted to do, have had a nominal, unsatis- 
factory, and, usually, short-lived existence, 
I do not recall a solitary exception. There 
may be and I think there are a few, though I 
have not seen them. Surely this could hardly 
be a matter of coincidence. 

That the pastor's interest should be so es- 
sential to the prosperity of the League is en- 
tirely natural and, indeed, necessary. His 
office, apart from any extraordinary person- 
ality, gives him a peculiar place in its work. 
There may be others in the League as earnest 
as he, as wise, as fertile in resources ; but he 
is pastor, and that fact gives him an influence 
that none other can have, and especially with 
the young people of the Church. No one can 
unite different classes and ages for a common 



The Pastor and the League, 17 



aim and a common work as well as the pastor. 
No one can inspire confidence and enthusiasm 
as he. Surely of all possible combinations, 
none is so significant in matters that mediate 
success in its work as the I/cague and the 
pastor. 
2 



18 The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER III. 

'THE) PASTOR AND HIS OBI^IGATION. 

Let US take the time now to write down this 
word OBIylGATlON, and read it in capitals. 
Many pastors have not done so. They get this 
idea of the I^eague : Here is another society, 
not different in character and availability from 
a score or more already in operation. They 
hear a great deal about the League in the 
Church and in the papers. Well, it will 
please the young people, and maybe keep 
them out of mischief. Anyway they desire 
it, and it is safer, maybe less trouble, to let 
them have it. It is a matter of expediency 
purely, and not at all of obligation and con- 
science. 

Such an attitude toward the League comes, 
and can only come, of failure to recognize its 
place and importance in the life of the Church. 
If the future intelligence and future efficiency 
of the Church membership, to say nothing of 
the present, are to depend upon the work of 
the League, as is undoubtedly true, can the 



The Pastor and the League, 19 

successful operation of the League be to the 
pastor a matter of indifference or simple 
choice, of no obligation or little obligation? 

From what has been said it clearly appears 
that no one is so essential to the prosperity of 
the League as the pastor. Suppose that by 
opposition or indifference he fails to do what 
he can to make it succeed. He does his 
Church a great injury. He not only does 
not help, but hinders, since his young people 
are sure to catch the contagion of his indiffer- 
ence. Nay, indeed, he literally blocks the 
way of progress. His personality will have 
much to do with success, but his position 
scarcely less. He is pastor of the Church for 
years. He not only does not take hold and 
lead or urge on to the work, but fills the posi- 
tion in which another, recognizing his obliga- 
tion, not only would not trammel by his 
apathy, but would help by leading his Church 
into the line of progress. So that by the in- 
difference of one man, in our polity, a Church 
might find herself four or five years behind 
her times. 

Now I know that the pastor who has not 
seen the importance of the lycague will say that 
this is only another case of "much cry and 



20 The Pastor and the League, 



little wool," and laughs in his sleeve at the 
unnecessary heat of the extremest who makes 
such unreasonable ''ado about nothing." It 
is not the heat of the extremest, as the skeptic 
will come to see, unless he be totally and hope- 
lessly blinded. The attitude of pastors is 
already changing. Once there v/ere some 
who were indifferent, opposed, and did not 
hesitate to discount and openly sneer at the 
Epworth lycague. With great interest and 
gratification I have observed the rapidly 
changing signs. The indifferent become sud- 
denly enthusiastic, and the opposed inter- 
ested, or, at least, seem quieting for the vault, 
so that few have the hardihood now to risk so 
much as a slur. 

Let no pastor suppose that he can afford to 
be indifferent. It does not take either a states- 
man or a seer to make this certain forecast. 
The Church is going forward, and upon this 
very line of progress. The young people's 
work will be the movement of the Church in 
this era. You cannot stop it, the tide is too 
strong for stemming; and the pastor that does 
not go with it will inevitably go under it — 
and he ought to. I do not speak rashly, but 
in the confidence of the calmest and most 



The Pastor a^id the League. 21 

thoughtful conviction. The time is near at 
hand, if not already upon us, when the pastor 
that neglects the League, and by his neglect 
suffers it to fail of prosperity, will be held to 
condign account in the matter of his oppor- 
tunity. If he insists on keeping his eyes 
shut, and persists in blocking the Church's 
progress, she will nevertheless open her eyes 
to the imposition, and when she does she will 
call another to his place, and relegate him to 
the rear that yields no opportunity to obstruc- 
tion. 



22 



The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER IV, 

THK PASTOR AND HIS OPPORTUNITY. 

The previous chapter was meant mainly to 
prepare the way for this. I wish that we could 
get away from our consciences, or certainly 
from the necessity of depending on them. 
But even the preacher who talks so much 
about Christian liberty requires an occasional 
pinching and prodding from that acrid quarter. 
But there is a more excellent way, certainly 
a more cheering aspect of the League from 
the pastor's point of view. 

When the true pastor comes really to appre- 
ciate the need of the Church, and the I^eague's 
wonderful adaptation to that need, he will not 
wait to see the obligation of the situation. 
He looks no longer at conscience, that presses 
from the rearward, but at the pleasing pros- 
pect which invites from before. lyike an inspir- 
ing revelation the magnificent sv/eep of op- 
portunity breaks upon him, and at once he 
parts company with obligation, because after 
that he can afford to. 



The Pastor and the League, 23 



How often, when the busy pastor thinks of 
organizing a League, does he feel, *'Well, 
what is the use of it anyway ? We have abun- 
dant societies already, and why another?" 
He will have to operate this, affording skill 
and motive power just as he has to do for 
all the others. He is dismayed at the very 
thought of " another society." 

Well, many Leagues are of that kind ; with 
poor organization, low vitality, slow, ram- 
shackle movement, or none at all. They 
exhaust more energy far than they generate. 
That is not the kind I have in mind: not a 
puny, sickly thing; but robust, healthy, ac- 
tive; can stand alone, Vv^alk alone, work 
alone. If the pastor has a League like that, 
he does not feel the burden of it ; the burden 
changes to buoyancy. The work he puts in 
here is caught up by a hundred v/orkers, and 
by them mxultiplied a hundredfold. 

The sympathetic, diligent pastor of a large 
congregation often wishes, what he rarely 
gets, an assistant pastor. There are so many 
things an assistant could do that never are 
done. Now an assistant pastor could render 
scarcely a tithe of the real help a thoroughly 
efi&cient League does. A company of young 



24 



The Pastor and the League, 



people from the I^eague visited an aged lady of 
another Church upon invitation, and held a 
prayer meeting. She was delighted, and de- 
clared that, in all her history, her own Church 
had done her no such kindness. She was 
disposed to blame the pastor for what she felt 
was neglect. But he was not to blame. He 
had a large Church, and could not possibly 
give her the attention she needed, and would 
get if her Church were properly organized and 
at work. 

A pastor looked over his Church register, to 
make a study of it before beginning a pastoral 
round, and as individual case after individual 
case needing immediate attention came before 
him he found himself well-nigh overwhelmed 
with the thought that there was so much to 
be done, and onl}^ himself to do it. It simply 
cannot be done. What pastor has not felt 
and said that? He did not. He had an Ep- 
worth lycague, and used it. He called to- 
gether the Chairmen of committees, and in an 
extended conference assigned them much of 
the work which would otherwise have fallen 
to him, and which, w^hile he could never have 
done it on account of its magnitude, would 
yet have hung constantly over him, taking 



The Pastor and the League, 25 



much of liis time, and all his peace of mind. 
They did as directed, saving the time and pre- 
venting the worry. 

The Ep worth League, properly employed, 
becomes the pastor's light infantry corps, 
readily mobilized and easily handled; his 
skirmish line for reconnoitering and partisan 
warfare; more, his Old Guard, his Tenth 
Legion, that, always reliable, are admirably 
adapted for quick, dexterous, dashing, well- 
girt movements against the enemy. 

When a young man at Conference reported 
"No League/' a thoughtful la3^man shook 
his head significantly, and said, "Back num- 
ber." No, he is not yet a "back number." 
He is a bright, earnest, useful fellow who 
will soon see his opportunity, and, when he 
does, can be relied upon to wheel at once into 
line. It is certain, however, that his e3^es have 
never yet been opened to the greatest of all 
opportunities, in tangible, intelligent, aggres- 
sive work for his Church, or for himself, that 
his Church ever offered him. 



26 The Pastor and the League. 



CHAPTER V. 

THK PASTOR AND SUCCESS. 

Possibly some one who has not tried it will 
say : ''All that is very much more easily writ- 
ten than done. It is a fine theory if you can 
work it, but there's the rub. Given a League 
of the sort described, and really prosperous, 
3^ou have one of the most useful of organiza- 
tions. But can 3^ou have one like that ? ' ' He 
sees in Churches all over the Connection 
"corpses" and "skeletons" of I^eagues that 
once were. He sees other feeble little societies 
that give a great deal more worry than serv- 
ice ; like delicate, diseased little flowers that, 
instead of cheering with their fragrance, de- 
press and sicken with their pallor. Maybe 
he has had experience of it himself. He 
organized a League, and w^hile the enthusiasm 
lasted it did prett}^ fair work. But after a 
little the reaction set in; its life ran gradually 
lovv^er and lower, till it finally died of heart 
failure — from sheer lack of vitalit3\ 

This is wh}' so man^r pastors hesitate. The}^ 



The Pastor and the League. 27 

have seen failure after failure, till they have 
come to feel that failure is always probable, 
and often inevitable. Will it succeed? I an- 
swer unhesitatingly that it will. I have been 
connected with several L^eagues. In no case 
were the circumstances especially favorable. 
The people were not different from other 
people, only they had the mind and will to 
work, and there was not one of them that 
failed, or did not come to a most robust and 
useful life. Of course some opportunities are 
better than others. There is better oppor- 
tunity in a large Church than in a small one, 
in an intelligent Church than an illiterate 
one, in a spiritual Church than in a worldly 
one, in the city than in the country. 

Just a word here about work in the country. 
We have wondered if it w^ere advisable to 
organize on the circuits. For one, I am no 
longer in doubt. Sometime since I asked a 
leading member of a strong country Church 
why they had no League, and his reply was 
that the people could not be gotten together 
in the country often enough. I was not cer- 
tain. Some fifteen miles from that place I 
w^as in a community in which were many 
children without the advantages of a Sunday 



28 The Pastor and the League. 

school. I asked a Christian lady why they 
did not organize a Sunday school, and she 
said that there was no one to take charge of 
it. They had had a school once in the public 
schoolhouse ; and actually it often happened 
that a man who was not a professing Chris- 
tian had to open, reading the scripture, offer- 
ing prayer, and conducting all the exercises ; 
and that, too, notwithstanding the fact that 
there were very many professing Christians 
in the neighborhood. *^Ah," thought I, "this 
is not different from thousands of country com- 
munities. There are many professing Chris- 
tians, but the smallest number of workers. 
What do they need ? What but the Epworth 
lycague to train the young people to do the 
work that so sadly needs doing.'* I felt that 
when the need was so great, surely, in the 
orderings of Providence, the supply would 
not be impossible, or even very difficult, and 
so, a priori, the League ought to succeed, and 
it will. 

Now for the sequel. Not ten miles from 
that point, in one of the most illiterate sec- 
tions of the country, in one of the newest 
and weakest Churches, of the very weakest 
denomination, was a Young People's Society 



The Pastor and the Leag7te. 



29 



of Christian Endeavor, organized and at 
wOrk, and upon inquiry I found that perhaps 
the best and most hopeful Christian work in 
the community was being done by that faith- 
ful band of young people w^ho had a mind 
, even in the country to make the society suc- 
ceed, and did it. 

^ Why there is no sort of peradventure, and 
we ought not to start out with the thought that 
there is. In the future there are some things 
which we can predict with almost absolute 
certainty. We carry the efficiency within 
ourselves. The success of the Ep worth 
lycague is one of those things. Will it suc- 
ceed? No, of course not. How can it suc- 
ceed — itself? Machinery will not run itself, 
however costly and however perfect. There 
must be somewhere in contact with it energy, 
heart, mind. Will it succeed? That is not 
the question. This is the form : Will we 
make it succeed? 

The pastor can do more to answer that ques- 
tion affirmatively than any other. No one 
else has his position, none his influence, none 
his opportunity^; and so no one is as much 
answerable for success as he. Let us examine 
several elements that he will find most essen- 



30 The Pastor and the League, 

tial to, and most available in, his efforts to 
lielp his lyeague to an active and prosperous 
life. 

I. COMMON SKNSK. 

Of all our lyord's divine-human furnishing 
for his life on earth, I believe he found scarcely 
anything more serviceable than his common 
sense. Common sense ! the power to see things 
— not great things; little, but no less important 
things — to see them not as they ought to be, 
but as they are; and in the premises to do 
not always a popular thing, not often an 
heroic thing, but always the very best thing 
that could have been done under the circum- 
stances. Common sense! but, in proportion 
to need and availability, the most uncommon 
thing in all the wide world. 

The pastor needs it always, as he needs 
nothing else except religion, but nowhere 
will he find it more necessary and serviceable 
than when touching the lycague. Common 
sense in conning a situation, in seeing and 
seizing upon the really important elements, 
in leading and inspiring the young people, in 
anticipating difficulties and reactions, in per- 
sistently, patiently, pursuing the purpose set, 
and the practical plans that look toward its 
accomplishment ! 



The Pasto?^ and the Leagiie, 31 



2. KNl^HUSIASM. 

This is the enthusiastic age of the world's 
histor3\ We have been reminded of that fact 
a thousand or so times already, but one more 
will not be too many, if we mean to accom- 
plish anything worthy the name. Kvery thing 
moves with a rush and a jerk to-day. Posi- 
tively, we live so fast now that we travel as 
far, hear and see as much, learn as much, 
and accomplish as much, in a single decade, 
as in the whole three-score and ten of our 
earthly allotment, a hundred years ago. 

Now enthusiasm is as legitimate in religion 
as elsewhere, and as essential. It is not new 
here. Christ was mad, they thought, and 
Paul was beside himself. The apostle did not 
deny the charge, but said that it was for their 
souls* sake, and out of the constraining love 
of his Ivord. 

Especially is enthusiasm necessary in I^eague 
work. Here are young people with any 
amount of warm blood, only waiting to be 
stirred. They may have good heads, but 
have not begun to use them yet. It is heart 
with them, and that goes by impulse. En- 
thusiasm begets enthusiasm, and the enthu- 
siastic pastor, as none other, will arouse the 



32 The Pastor and the League, 



enthusiasm — the interest, confidence, and 
energ}^ — of the 3^oung people of the Church, 

3. O^KNACITY. 

Perhaps I ought to put on the prefix for 
emphasis, and say pertinacity. The holding 
on has in it an element of obstinacy. The 
kind of enthusiasm we want is intelligent en- 
thusiasm; none other will answer. It is easy 
enough to move the feelings of young people. 
What element is more volatile than the blood 
of youth? You can get them to join the 
League, and come as long as the enthusiasm 
lasts; but as they came in with the tide, so, as 
the tide sets back, they will go out. with it. 
And the higher the tide at the flooding, the 
harder to stem in the ebbing. 

Here is found the crucial test. The pastor's 
enthusiasm needs the staying and sticking 
quality, his grip must have the steel; or his 
hold breaks, and the catastrophe is on. Let 
him not forget, he made up his mind in the 
beginning, not to try it, but to do it ; not that 
it might succeed, but that it would succeed, 
it must. There is no more reason why it 
should fail now than existed then. No reac- 
tion should be allowed to discourage or sur- 



The Pastor a7id the League, 33 



prise. When the ebb starts, if he has prop- 
erly calculated and planned, and really has 
the steel, he holds on. While others are 
yielding to panic and deserting, he is calm, 
still confident, still working, and the whole 
Church indifferent or opposed could hardly 
beat him back. 
3 



34 



T^ie Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER VI. 

THB PASTOR AND HIS HOBBY. 

It seems a pity to arrest the rising tide, 
even for a moment's caution. But it is neces- 
sary at tHis point. The pastor that sees 
his opportunity in the League, and the work 
really prospering, as he believed it would, is 
liable to become so enthusiastic as to magnify 
this department of work at the expense of 
others. There is danger of making it his 
hobby. 

Now hobby riders are often the men that 
move the world — they just as often move the 
world's disgust and bile. The preacher ought 
to be broader than that. lyCt him glow over 
the lycague, but why, in his ardor, neglect 
the Sunday school, Missions, and many other 
integral and important departments of the 
Church's work? Maybe he is a specialist, he 
is better in one line of w^ork than another : 
he should be good at all, or at least try to be. 
Other departments need his interest, and lan- 
guish without it. 



The Pastor and the League, 



35 



Again, and especially, his partiality for one 
class of work, and one class of members, will 
arouse jealousies and antagonisms. Men will 
say that he gives all his time to the young 
people, and cares nothing for the old. Elderly 
people are very sensitive. We often think 
that they are old enough, and have seen 
enough of Christian life, to take care of them- 
selves, without so much attention from the 
pastor. But the^^ love the pastor, appreciate 
his attention and sympathy, and really require 
it scarcely less than the young. If the pastor 
is to be a specialist, let him never allow him- 
self to pursue his specialty to narrowness — 
ride his hobby ad nauseam. 



36 



The Pastor a?id the League, 



CHAPTER VII. 
the: pastor and organization. 

He will ask what is the best way to go about 
organizing. This question is especially im- 
portant now when there are so many Churches 
without the I^eague, and so many being won 
over to the idea of having it. 

Organization starts with the pastor, or 
ought to. He gets all the helps available in 
the way of constitution and by-laws and 
tracts, as there are several that give sugges- 
tions about organization. He ought to do 
that, if he does not. 

There is nothing more important than an 
intelligent and thorough organization, and I 
want especially to emphasize that. From a 
poor organization the L^eague often never re- 
covers. Under the burden of it, it struggles 
along till, in some cases, it dies, and must 
start again; and lives, if it lives at all, by a 
process of resurrection, a most difficult pro- 
cess always. I mentioned corpses and 
''skeletons." There are many of these all 



The Pastor and the League, 



37 



through the Church, and such a pity it is! 
For the League it is far better not to have 
lived at all, than to live and die. When 
you are troubled with the defunct remains of 
a society like that, it is most difl&cult to re- 
organize. The young people have lost confi- 
dence, and shy at the very mention of the 
name. 

It is no easy or very simple matter to 
organize a I^eague if it is properly done. 
The pastor calls together a mass meeting for 
organization. Well, they have heard a great 
deal about the lycague. It is a new thing, and, 
as most people are Athenians on new things, 
he has a crowd. Nobody in particular knows 
anything in particular. But somebody looks 
at the constitution and by-laws, and states 
that there must be so many departments, and 
so many, and such officers. The departments 
are provided, the ofiicers are elected, and 
great enthusiasm prevails. Many join, both 
young and old, and there is your organiza- 
tion. It is not wonderful that, in a little 
while, you have a regular bedlam of con- 
fusion. Demoralization succeeds, reaction, 
discouragement, indifference, disorganization 
— death. 



38 The Pastor a7id the League, 

It takes time to get a League started. I^et no 
one suppose that the first thing to do is to 
call a meeting, and go into formal organiza- 
tion. Sometimes the pastor's enthusiasm 
runs riot with his judgment ; he does that, 
and must pay the penalty. It takes time to 
arouse enthusiasm, if that enthusiasm is to be 
intelligent. 

I know a pastor that, having decided to 
have a I^eague, did scarcely anything but 
talk it for a month. He presented it ''pub- 
licly, and from house to house." He kept 
that up until his people became impatient, 
and clamored for organization. No ; they 
were not ready 3^et. He knew the special 
difficulties and special needs, and was pro- 
viding for them at the outset. 

Let the pastor bear especially in mind that 
numbers are not a very important desideratum. 
Of course the purpose of the I^eague is to 
bring in and train as many as possible, but I 
mean as regards success. // is not numbe7^s 
that make stcccess. It is true here, as elsewhere 
in Christian work, it is not the hundreds and 
fifties, but the twos and ones, that are really 
important. Personality is the particular thing 
to depend on and to look out for. Kvery pas- 



The Pastor and the League. 39 



tor will feel that while he is developing much 
beyond this, still the life and prosperity of 
the League, certainly in the early part of its 
history, will depend upon the interest and 
work of a half dozen, sometimes, indeed, 
upon one or two 3^oung people of striking 
personality and more than ordinary influ- 
ence. 

Young people are like sheep, and a few must 
wear the bell. It is the bell-sheep idea — if 
you will allow the homely but suggestive ex- 
pression — that will often, perhaps oftener than 
any other, solve the difficult problem of suc- 
cess. With all his advantages of position and 
influence, the pastor would hardly win success 
without some such as these. What he needs 
to do, when he has informed himself as to the 
nature of the work, is to single out a few from 
among his young people, those with most re- 
ligion and, by their religion and individuality, 
with most influence, and work through these. 
Get them to know w^hat the I^eague is, and 
what it is in detail. Get them to believe in 
its utility and its practicability. See that 
these have the confidence and enthusiasm 
which he has, and he need not fear for the 
rest. 



40 



The Pastor and the League, 



I was pastor of a Church whose interest in 
every department had greatly declined. I saw 
that what was needed was the infusion of new 
life; warm, buo3^ant, fresh life. What better 
thing could w^e have than the Epworth lycague ? 
I found some prejudice against it in differ- 
ent quarters that gave special difficulty. In 
the congregation, however, was a young man 
of great common sense, as well as great piety 
and zeal. I knew his influence, and was cer- 
tain that if I could win him and impress him 
with the importance of the League its pros- 
perity was assured ; otherwise not so. I asked 
him to come to the parsonage for a talk. It 
was a busy evening in other matters, but I 
knew that the crisis had come, and that now 
was my opportunity. We talked it about two 
hours and a half, and w^hen he was leaving I 
said : ^' Do you believe in the League?'* He 
answered: ''I do.'' Will it do good?" *'It 
will.'* Will it succeed here?" I think so." 
*'Are you enthusiastic?" ''I am." The 
League began. It was the life of the Church, 
and that 3^oung man, as I expected, w^as the 
life of the League, and from that time there 
was never a moment's uncertainty about its 
success and value. 



The Pastor and the Leagiie, 41 



I am sure that nothing is more important 
than the influence of certain striking and 
strong personalities; and in the organization, 
upon which so much depends, the pastor will 
find nothing more important than the dis- 
covering and bringing out of these. 



42 



The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THB PASTOR AND AUTHORITY. 

I want to offer here another word of caution. 
We have seen the pastor's relation to the 
lyeague, and his responsibility growing out 
of that relationship. If now he rightly ap- 
preciates the situation, he will recognize his 
opportunity, and, in the best sense, magnify 
his office. Let him be very careful that he 
does not exaggerate its authority. Woe be- 
tide the day and the League when the pastor 
comes to think that he must *^ run it.'' 

Of course, in our polity it is well enough 
understood that the pastor's authority in the 
Church is supreme. It is true of Church or- 
ganizations, and the League is no exception. 
Prerogative is his ; let him use, only let him 
not abuse it. There is no danger that he will 
not have all the authority he is entitled to. 
His ofhce starts him ahead of all the rest; 
he is pastor. Then, as he is usually a man 
of some personality, or ought to be, his per- 
sonality adds much. Methodist people are not 



The Pastor and the League. 43 



given to insubordination. The military idea 
running through our system of itinerancy 
trains to subjection. Young people especially 
are accustomed not to control, but to be 
controlled ; not to exercise, but to regard 
and reverence authority, particularly if it be 
pastoral. From the time they call him 
uncle,'* and on, outside the home, and per- 
haps without any exception, nobody is quite 
so good or wise, none to be quite so much rev- 
erenced as the pastor. Young people are 
more than disposed to do what the pastor 
suggests. 

Authority is his, then. He is not only en- 
titled to it, but it is actually in his hands. Let 
him recognize and use only, not stickle for 
the form of it. It is a new, beautiful, tip to 
date machine — the Epworth League. His 
skill and energy are m^uch needed to operate 
it. He will study the wheels and bands, there- 
fore, to know it perfectly ; he will keep his 
eye on it, he w411 keep his hand on every 
part; only let it be a skillful, soft, unseen 
hand. 

The pastor often makes a most fatal mis- 
take in allowing the disposition to rule to 
characterize his work throughout. It is largely 



44 The Pastor and the League, 

a matter of habit with him. In the smaller 
Churches, during his earlier pastorates, he di- 
vided his authority with no one, as he divided 
nothing else, till now, doing about all the 
work, and exercising all the authority. So 
undisputed has been his sway, so easy and 
natural has it been for him to direct and con- 
trol things, so long as he done it, that it has 
become second nature for him to lord it over 
God's heritage. If unresisted, he becomes a 
tyrant without ever suspecting it ; and if re- 
sisted, as he often is in the larger Churches 
and ought to be, he clashes with those who, 
if properly handled, would be his best helpers, 
repels them, forestalls his own opportunity, 
and maybe has to seek another field. The 
account he gives of such a Church is that 
they are a disloyal, insubordinate set, when 
as a matter of fact they were simply doing 
what ought to have been done for him long 
before: making a reasonable resistance to un- 
reasonable tyranny. 

A pastor getting out of humor and sulking 
about his little brief authority is a spectacle 
most ludicrous to me, if it were not so deplor- 
able. He is servant of all; and that means 
not sovereignty, but service. If he is of the 



The Pastor and the League. 45 



right kind, he wants the work done ; and the 
way he can best accomplish that is the way 
he likes best, and lets prerogative go to the 
winds. Other things being equal, he ought 
to have more influence than any other ; and 
he has it. There is no question about that. 
But why dwarf the best life of the Church by 
throttling and absolutely repressing all spirit 
of independence. 

He will give his enthusiasm, his common 
sense, his counsel, his work ; but why suppose 
that the officers he proposes must be elected 
just because he proposes them, and his opin- 
ions adopted solely because they are his opin- 
ions? He will let this young people know 
that they are to have opinions of their own; 
and, if better than his, he is ready any mo- 
ment to yield his. It is thus that they will 
come to respect his wishes, and be most dis- 
posed to do as he desires. 

It is not at all my purpose to encourage in- 
subordination. I have no patience with any 
species of insubjection, from a bishop down. 
I have no sympathy with the sentiment very 
rarely expressed, ''As between the Church 
and the lycague, I am with the lycague." 
There can be no vsuch issue as that. If there 



46 



The Pastor and the League, 



can be, when it comes, and comes to be 
general, I for one will be for relegating the 
I^eague to a most summary decease, and one 
so effectual as to be absolutely be3^ond the 
hope of resurrection. 

Between the lycague and the Church ! The 
lycague is the Church. It does the work of 
the Church, and above all things, as says the 
constitution, fosters loyalty: loyalty to the 
history of the Church, to its institutions, to 
its ofl&cers. I would not utter one word to 
lessen that loyalty, but would increase and 
strengthen it by every means possible ; and 
I believe that the highest form of loyalty is 
that which easily consists Vvdth, and is, in- 
deed, the outgrowth of an intelligent, manly 
self-reliance. 

This is the layman's age. He has found 
himself; the Church has found him. Nothing 
perhaps is so important as to bring him to 
a full consciousness of his place and power. 
It is not more important to foster his loyalty 
than to find and bring to strong, sturdy de- 
velopment his Christian manhood. Let the 
pastor see to it that, as among the most im- 
portant things he would do for his Church, 
at this period of formation, he will train his 



The Pastor and the League. 47 



3^oung people to habits of self-reliance, and 
that by no silly stickling for authority on his 
part shall that important purpose fail of ac- 
complishment. 



48 The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PASTOR AND WORK. 

What was said about the spirit of inde- 
pendence suggests some thoughts as to the 
pastor's part in the work of the League. 

Let us recall the definitions of the League. 
When you get the gist of them, you will 
have very nearly this : The Epworth League 
is an organization that trains for work. Here 
is the need of the kingdom to-day, as it always 
has been, of all denominations, in every 
Church, from the feeblest country chapel to 
the strongest metropolitan temple. They all 
need workers. 

In our Church, while the class meeting 
lasted, the young people were trained to a cer- 
tain sort of religious activity; but after that 
lost its hold, excepting the ladies^ societies, 
organized usually for the more temporal and 
secular parts of the Church's work, there has 
been scarcely any training agency. There 
was an occasional revival of such pervasive 
and general sweep as to give a young Chris- 



The Pastor and the League, 49 

tian an impulse, under the glow of his first 
love or renewed love, that put him to work, 
and kept him at it. But till the Epworth 
lyeague came the serious problem of the pastor 
was how he should get his people to work, and 
especially at that time of life when it is easiest, 
if not easy to begin, and when, from the pli- 
ancy and tactility of youth, they will acquire 
a facility for work that they can never after- 
wards. 

I recur to the case mentioned above, of the 
community in which there was no Sunday 
school because there was nobody to conduct 
it, though there were many professing Chris- 
tians. This, I said, was one of thousands. 
There is nobody to do the work, and it is the 
hardest thing to get anybody to do it. 

I have had good men to beg me not to call 
on them to pray in a Wednesday night service, 
and threaten not to come unless I gave them 
my word of honor that I would not. Sometimes 
a man who has been a Christian forty years will 
sit through a prayer meeting talk in mortal 
terror if he has any suspicion that he may be 
called on to lead in pra^^er at the conclusion 
of the talk. This is true of all sorts of Chris- 
tian work; leading meetings, offering public 
4 



50 The Pastor a7id the League, 



prayer, talking to the unsaved, visiting the 
poor and the sick. And it is true not only 
of worldly Christians and those afar off, but 
of many very good men. Why is it? This 
little experience in athletics will very strik- 
ingly illustrate. When I became a student in 
the university I found that I would be required 
to exercise in the g3minasium three times each 
week. Strangely, when in college I had not 
cared for athletics, and took my exercise in 
sawing w^ood or walking down the railroad 
track, mainly and preferably the latter, and so 
exercise in the gymnasium became the great- 
est drudge for me from the beginning. Right 
manfully did I work away for awhile at the 
clubs and bells, bars and trapezes, but found 
that it was unavailing. Whenever I was put 
up with a class on exhibition I missed the 
swing or figure, and disgraced the whole busi- 
ness. The director finally rid himself of the 
scandal of my awkwardness by putting me 
under the galleries, where the spectators could 
not see me. I never got beyond the windmill 
with the clubs, or skinning the cat with the 
ropes. The dog was already too old to learn 
new tricks. Finally, in great disgrace and 
greater disgust, I got a special dispensation 



The Pastor and the League. 



51 



from the Chancellor of the university and the 
dean of my department to resign the gymna- 
sium, and I gave it up. 

It is as true in religion as it is in athletics. 
If you want to acquire skill and ease in spirit- 
ual exercises, begin early, when the bones are 
flexible and the muscles soft. You take a 
young man and put him to work, and he is 
not so careful about his dignity or appear- 
ance. He is not so easily embarrassed ; or if 
he is, the embarrassment is by no means so 
trying. 

''Why not talk?" I asked a Christian some 
time adult. '' Because I would do so poorly." 
"Well, why not say some little thing that a 
child could say without tangling and trip- 
ping?" ''Pshaw!" he replied, "I want to 
say something worth hearing. ' ' That is just 
it. He wants to run before he walks or 
crawls. Now men forty years old are not in 
the habit of crawling at anything, and find 
that exercise extremely mortifying. So awk- 
ward and difficult is it that when a man has 
lived to be thirty or forty years old as a Chris- 
tian, and never become a worker, it is proba- 
ble, by the largest odds, that he never will. 
All this explains why it is that, V\^hile there 



52 The Pastor and the Leagiie. 



is so much to do, there is so little done, and 
what is done is scarcely better than half done. 

And yet there is much latent material, 
much good will, and some real piety. How 
shall the supply be brought to the need? It 
is certain that there is to be some careful 
manipulation, some very faithful mediation. 
The pastor is to be mediator between the work 
and the workers. 

If the lycague is a workers' training school 
(and it is), then manifestly it is not so much 
what work is done, though that is important, 
but how many are engaged in the doing, and 
by doing get strength and skill to do more, 
lyct the pastor recognize this important fact, 
and see his relation to it. The League has 
done its best work when it has set the largest 
number to doing something. The pastor's 
business, then, at this point, is not to do the 
work of the Leag2ie^ but to get the League to 
work. 

It is as true as the gospel is true, as Mr. 
Moody puts it, that it is better to put ten men 
to work than to do the work of ten. That is 
so well understood that it is hardly necessary to 
say why. In the first case, only the work is 
done, and that ends it; in the other, not only 



The Pastor and the League. 53 



is the work done, but ten men are taught to 
work, and will keep at it. It is just the differ- 
ence between arithmetical and geometrical 
progression. 

There are two wa3^s of working which I have 
observed among pastors. In the first the pastor 
is diligent and earnest. He is all the time at 
work, and does his work m.ost excellently. 
By the force of his extraordinary personality 
he gets his Church en 7nasse into many things. 
He, however, does not organize his people 
and train them into discriminating, persistent 
habits of activity. They are simpl}^ moved 
by, and finally — absorbed into his personality. 
He is a strong pastor and much sought after. 
Nobody has such enthusiastic pastorates as he 
while he is with them. But when he leaves, 
observe the reaction. See hoAV the preacher 
that follows must struggle against the ebbing 
tide. The best he can do often is to stay the 
tide, and sometimes he is not able to do that, 
but goes under, as do many of the Church's 
best interests. 

The explanation is that the training has 
been defective ; there has been no training at 
all. All his methods of w^ork have tended to 
develop in them a spirit of helplessness, and 



54 



The Pastor a7id the League, 



made liim more and more essential to their 
prosperity. They have leaned on him until 
they find themselves absolutely incapable of 
working or walking alone. He has done a 
big work, maybe ; but has done his Church in- 
calculable injury, although himself the last 
and least of all suspected as the cause of the 
injury. The man that is so unfortunate as to 
follow him gets the blame of the reaction that 
is most sure to follow an enthusiastic, but 
extremely unwnse, pastorate like that. 

Now the other pastor works as faithfully 
as this, and as constantly, not omitting to do 
much personal work, knowing that the only 
wa}^ to learn the best methods is by doing the 
best work. 

But he works intelligently and wisely. He 
has in mind future as well as present pros- 
perity. Above all things, his Church must 
be put beyond the control of all fortuitous 
circumstances. How can he do his best work 
among his people, and at the same time not 
render them dependent upon his particular 
methods, and so expose them to demoraliza- 
tion, w^hen he must sometime, with all his 
itinerant race, fold his tent like the Arab and 
silentl}^ go somewhere else? By seeing to 



The Pastor and the League, 



55 



nothing more studiously than that they shall 
be trained to rely upon themselves, trained 
therefore to think for themselves, plan for 
themselves, to know how to do, and to do, the 
kind of work which will always be at their 
hands. 

John the Baptist was the true type. He 
must increase; I, decrease ;" absolutely no 
feeling of jealously. It was his joy that his 
Master should continue to grow greater when 
he was gone. 

And that is the feeling of every true pastor. 
How far beneath the spirit of this greatest of 
prophets is the pastor who can with compla- 
cency contemplate the probability that, when 
he is gone, his Church will sorely suffer for 
his absence. He may have done a good work, 
I say, but not a wise one ; and for the fact that 
the Church does suffer for his going, though 
he little suspect it, he is himself alone answer- 
able. 



56 The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER X. 

THK PASTOR AISTD DKTAII,. 

I regard this subject important enougti for 
a special cliapter. 

There is something more than epigram in 
the definition : Genius is an infinite capacity 
for taking pains. There is truth. 

We are about agreed that Napoleon was, all 
things considered, the greatest genius the 
world ever saw. Attention to detail was con- 
fessedly a large, if not the larger, part of his 
genius. He thought no matter of the cam- 
paign unworthy of his personal attention. 
The position of the enemy, their number and 
strength, the roads, the condition of the com- 
mands and companies, and even the men, with 
their individual characteristics and merits, 
were all the objects of his most careful study. 

And this is the genius of the great pastor. 
A man may preach eloquent sermons, may 
love his people, visit and sympathize with 
them, be called a great preacher and an ex- 
cellent pastor, and still, somehow, his work 



The Pastor and the League, 



57 



does not prosper. It is disappointing to him 
and to others, going always by a halting, hob- 
bling pace, that he thinks utterly unaccount- 
able. 

It is not unaccountable. In nine cases out 
of ten this will be found the explanation. He 
has not given himself to the drudgery of de- 
tail. He sees things en masse^ ^^X,^ a general 
view of the whole, but is so carried away with 
the bulk as to be totally unconscious of, and 
indifferent to, minutiae. 

No, the man that sees only in perspective 
sees only vaguely and partially. The work is 
mainly done in little matters, and little matters 
are overlooked in any general or distant view. 
It is not wonderful that many things come up 
along the way to be done, that have not been 
provided for, many reactions not anticipated ; 
and so he is committed to a policy that dooms 
him to perpetual disappointment and frequent 
panic. 

How essential this, in the pastor's work for 
the League. In organization nothing is more 
important, and hence I have emphasized the 
fact that it takes some time and much thought 
to organize with effect. Let them clamor for 
organization. Does he know the ground? 



58 The Pas to?'' and the League. 

I^et him hold the reins on his own enthusiasm 
till he does. He must go ahead and study his 
young people, know their strength and weak- 
ness. If he has done his duty, he is prepared 
for emergencies, and is never taken by sur- 
prise. Not a reaction arises that he has not 
already anticipated and provided against. 

He must know the machine if he hopes to 
operate it with skill and energy. It is not be- 
neath him to be familiar with the constitution 
and by-laws. From careful study of the 
genius of the League, he should get in mind, 
and keep clearly before him, its purpose. If 
he would keep his hand on every part, as he 
should, he must know it through and through. 

He should know the work in detail. Young 
people are willing to work, and it is a mistake 
to suppose that they are not, as we often do. 
They hesitate simply because, in our habits of 
dealing with these things, we have regarded 
Christian activity as so complicated and so 
transcendent. Tell them in a most eloquent 
sermon that they must work, and they will not 
hear. They think it is too high, they cannot 
attain unto it. Tell one in private conversation 
that he can do something, put the finger upon 
that something, show him how to do it to the 



The Pastor and the League, 



59 



minutest particular, and lie takCvS an entirely 
different view of it. 

The pastor must know his own ground 
therefore ; study his register, his congrega- 
tion, community, even more carefully than if 
he had the work to do himself. I^et him allot 
the work in easy, simple, and detailed form, 
and they will do it gladly and well. 



60 



The Pastor and the League, 



CHAPTER XI. 

THi: PASTOR AND COMMITTBKS. 

The League is divided into departments, 
with each in charge of a special committee, 
one of the most important features of the 
organization. Nothing is more certain than 
that its work in every department, if done 
well, is to be done largely through these com- 
mittees. 

The body of the League is usually too bulky 
for detailed, which is the same as effective, 
work. It is too formal for free discussion and 
intelligent planning. In the committee, the 
formality vanishes, and the members get 
nearer to each other ; it becomes less like 
meeting and more like real life and work. 

Take the Religious Work Committee. It is 
well known that no work is so important as 
that of the devotional meeting. If there is a 
healthy interest here, you can with reasonable 
assurance look for good work in the other de- 
partments. If this is defective, all life, inter- 
est, prosperity, is only seem^ing and factitious. 



The Pastor aiid the League. 61 

Now the interest in this branch of the work 
does not spring spontaneously, but quite oth- 
erwise, with earnest, skillful, constant, patient 
effort. 

A pastor writes, *'How do you get your 
young people to take part in the religious 
meetings?" a question we have all asked, and 
do not so easily answer — certainly not with- 
out faithful effort. I believe that herein is 
largely found the solution of that problem — 
viz., in faithful work by the -committee. Is 
the attendance poor, the interest feeble, partic- 
ipation in the services meager ; is it difi&cult 
to get leaders ; does the whole service go 
heavily, hobblingly, unsatisfactorily? If so, 
how can this be remedied? The committee 
needs to come together. Not for a half hour 
after some service, when everybody is tired 
out, and in a hurry to get through and go 
home. Take an evening, a whole evening; 
get a full meeting of the committee. Dis- 
cuss every aspect of the work. How induce 
young people to lead? Who will lead on the 
list? What are the best methods of leading? 
What things need especially to be corrected? 
What new features introduced? What changes 
made to lift out of ruts? Who ought to take 



62 The Pastor and the Lea o- ice. 



part' — what part take? How induce them to? 
and many other kindred questions. 

From an evening spent like that, the mem- 
bers of the committee themselves become 
more interested and enthusiastic, and in the 
discussions a great many new ideas come out. 
The very next night, the meeting will be found 
to carry new life, and it will continue to get 
better in proportion to the thoroughness of 
the work done in the committee. 

Of course the pastor should be at this meet- 
ing. It is here he does his best work, and 
exerts his most telling influence. Do they 
discuss methods? He ought from his expe- 
rience to know more about method than any 
of the others. He is on hand with many 
things to suggest. Do they need enthusiasm? 
He ought to be the most enthusiastic member 
of the League ; and he can impart intelligent 
enthusiasm here as he does not get the oppor- 
tunity of doing elsewhere. How often does 
he save them from panic in the committee. 
They are discouraged ; nobody will lead, few 
will take part, few attend. The committee are 
discouraged, and out of patience. He takes 
a broader and more hopeful view ; tells them 
that there is no occasion for discouragement, 



The Pastor and the League, 63 



and shows them why there is not. If there is 
difference of opinion about any matter in the 
committee, and controversy waxes warm, he 
is present to arbitrate and soothe by his 
counsel, influence, and kindliness. Do they 
discuss work? He knows the work as no 
other does, and can point out what needs 
doing, who ought to be able to do it, and how 
it can be done. It is only in the committee 
that he can do all this with the best advantage, 
if indeed at all. 

Not that the pastor should think, or the 
committee think, that they cannot have a meet- 
ing without his presence. They can and ought 
to, and when the organization gets well on its 
feet, and under way, they will do that. But 
he ought to attend often, for it is through the 
committee, let him be very sure, that he is to 
keep his hand upon the machinery, and do 
for the League the best service. 

Now I am quite sure that there is many a 
pastor who will think it foolish to talk of his 
attending the meetings of the committees. 
He thinks that the young people should re- 
gard themselves fortunate if he attends the 
public mieeings. 

Well, he can make choice of the two alter- 



64 The Pastor and the League, 



natives. Go and do for them a really helpful 
work, and have a prosperous I^eague, or stay 
away, and let them struggle on without him, 
doing some work, but little, and even more 
probably going to pieces, and suspending, 
after a forlorn and constantly losing struggle. 

He will especially remember in the commit- 
tee what was said in the chapter on pastoral 
authority. I^et his attitude toward the com- 
mittee be that of helper, never that of dic- 
tator. lyCt him give suggestions, but be ready 
to yield his opinion or plan if a better than 
his is offered. 



The Pastor ajid the League, 



65 



CHAPTER XII. 

THK PASTOR AND HIS TIMK. 

I must pause here, and, at the risk of seem- 
ing to repeat some things already said, give 
a special chapter to THE pastor and his 

TIME. 

By this he may be losing some of the ardor 
enkindled in the earlier chapters. He is to 
keep so close to the League, know it so well, 
do so much for it, even to the minutest de- 
tails of its organization and work. Well, he 
begins to recall that the same must be done 
for the Sunday school, for the ofl&cial board, 
for the ladies' and other societies. He must 
visit a large membership from house to house, 
going oftener to see the sick and afflicted. 
He must preach twice a week, and lecture 
Wednesday evening. There are scores of 
outside calls pressing for service. He is dis- 
mayed before the appalling magnitude of his 
work, and thinks he could not possibly ac- 
complish it, unless there were twenty hours 
instead of twelve in the day, and one hundred 
5 



66 The Pastor a7id the League, 

and seventy years instead of seventy in a life- 
time, and therefore what has been said about 
the lyeague is simply fine talk after all that 
practically cannot be worked. 

It is true, as every diligent pastor knows, 
that there is in the pastorate no time for 
idling. If he seems to idle, it is only that he 
may catch breath and gather strength for re- 
newed and increased effort. If he supposes 
that he is to have an easy work, with much 
spare time on his hands, he has misappre- 
hended the nature of his calling, and had 
better quit and go at something else. An- 
other was called, and he answered. 

But I want to repeat, out of an experience 
that has tested it practically, and knows 
whereof it affirms, that the right sort of 
I^eague does not diminish, but very greatly 
increases, the pastor's time. 

I look at my register. Here is a sick man 
to be visited ; fruit will refresh him and flow- 
ers cheer. I cannot go just now, or as often 
as he needs attention. I report to some mem- 
ber of the League, and it is done. ^There are 
strangers to be looked after, people just come 
to town, and the pastor must see them, and 
see them again and again, until he gets them 



The Pastor and the League. 67 

safely housed in some warm Church home. 
Maybe he finds it exceedingly inconvenient 
to go just now. He sends the League instead, 
and half the visits now from him will accom- 
plish twice the good. 

There is a poor family to be looked after, 
and their needs are urgent. It is Saturday 
afternoon, or as likely Sunday afternoon. He 
is as busy as mortal man can be already. But 
he must go to this call, if he talks nonsense 
to-morrow or this evening in the sermon he is 
preparing. If he has an Epworth League as 
convenient, as nimble, as willing, as these 
3^oung people usually are, he can turn the 
matter over to them in five minutes, and go 
back to his sermon without a wave of care or 
anxiety lest they may not do all that is needed 
for those who may be distressingly needy. 
There are some sensitive people who con- 
stantly complain that the preacher does not 
come very often, and the members never. The 
older members are busy, or averse to that sort 
of work, and will not do it ; but the young 
people have been trained and will go, doing 
anything, from holding a pra3^er meeting to 
carrying a circular from the ofl&cial board. 
God bless them ! The pastor can go to see 



68 The Pastor and the League, 

his members half as often as he did once, and 
find them in much better humor when he 
does go. 

He does not do as much as he once did, 
but it is much better done. He is in better 
health and better cheer. He does wiser pas- 
toral work, better preaching, and better serv- 
ice all around. In truth, so far from taking 
his time, he suddenly awakens to the delight- 
ful consciousness that, through the work of 
the Ep worth I^eague, he has at last (what he 
never had before, and feared he never would 
have, but what God surely meant he should 
have) time enough to do what his hands find 
to do. 



The Pastor and the League. 



G9 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THK PASTOR AND HIS JOY. 

The apostle, writing to the Thessalonians, 
says : For what is our hope, or joy, or crown 
of glorying? Are not even ye, before our 
lyord Jesus at his coming? For ye are our 
glory and our joy.' ^ 

Happy pastor he who can write such things 
to his cherished people. A pastor's people is 
not always that. Especially are not his young 
people. They constitute often his greatest 
source of anxiety. Many of them live worldly 
lives, that reproach the Church and dishonor 
Christ. Some that once seemed kindly and 
religiously disposed, he sees growing indiffer- 
ent at length, as there seems little in the 
Church to foster an active interest. 

They are not useful, and as they receive lit- 
tle training probably will never be. For want 
of exercise, their spiritual powers actually 
shrink away, and die of pure atrophy. No 
culture, no loyalty — or little. The pastor 
must do all the work that is done, or nearly 



70 The Pastor and the League, 



so. He must visit the sick, look after the 
poor, lead every meeting, and offer every 
public prayer, simply because there is nobody 
else that will do it. 

Now this is an extreme case, perhaps; but, 
as many are ready to testify, it is an exact 
reprint of others easily found in actual life. 
A pastor like that, I pity from my heart. 
God pity him; he is very wretched, and, alas! 
very numerous. 

But how different the pastor with a flourish- 
ing Epworth lycague. Not the kind, I repeat, 
too often seen, that the Church has to coax 
and coddle to keep at work, and, indeed, 
manipulate most constantly to hold life in. 
Not that kind, but one that carries sufficient 
vitality to support its own existence, and 
affords much to other coordinate departments 
of the Church; a vigorous, robust life-center, 
that sends its rich, full blood pulsing through 
every artery and vein of the entire body. 

The devotional meeting he looks forward 
to as a season of unusual refreshing. He is 
not particularly responsible for its conduct, 
and yet is sure that it will be an occasion of 
great spiritual interest. '.'Shall I go?" he 
never asks ; you cannot keep him away — not 



The Pastor and the League, 



71 



that pastor. He doCvS not lose, but gains by 
going — time, life, impetus. It is to him, 
week after week, a very wellspring of unfail- 
ing blessedness. 

His young people are no longer worldly, 
since they have something better than the 
world to engage them; no longer idle, since 
they have something to do, and know how to 
do it; no longer disloyal, but, knowing the 
Church and its history, are true to its tradi- 
tions and institutions. 

The work is no longer undone, since there 
are so many to do it. Surely this is his joy 
and crown of rejoicing. 



THK KND. 



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